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Sandesh

Sandesh

Sandesh (Sondesh, Shondesh) is a Bengali sweet that's made from fresh chana. It's absolutely delicious and the best part about making sandesh at home is that you can choose the type of flavours you want and more importantly, sweetness levels. Here are the step by step instructions to make chana. For making enough chana for 6 sandesh, you need 500 ml milk. Check detailed recipe to make chana at home and scale the amount of milk to get the required number of sandesh.

Ingredients:

1 cup of chana
2.5 tbsp of sugar
A small pinch of cardamom powder
A few strands of saffron
1 tbsp of warm milk
A tiny pinch of salt (optional)

Instructions:

1. Soak the saffron strands in the warm milk.
2. Once you have made the chana and kneaded it to a smooth-ish consistency, add the sugar, salt and cardamom powder to it.
3. Knead again lightly with your fingertips until the mixture is well combined.
4. Transfer to a pan and cook on low heat to remove the rawness of the chana.
5. The mixture will start to let out some moisture and turn soft and mushy. Keep stirring until it starts to leave the sides of the pan. If you overcook, the chana will turn dry so stop when the mixture is moist and coming together as a lump.
6. Transfer to a bowl and add the saffron , milk. When the mixture is warm, shape into small balls, and flatten lightly. You can use moulds at this stage (check notes) too. If you want a milder kesar flavour like me, add some saffron strands on the shaped sandesh.